


I’d Go the Whole Wide World

by SilverServerError



Series: Elf Practice [15]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Late night thoughts, Tender - Freeform, background taakitz, if you read only one thing from me, not lup/taako, this would be a good one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 06:05:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16362287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverServerError/pseuds/SilverServerError
Summary: So here lies Barry Bluejeans, Prometheus among men. Paid for with hypocrisy. Entirely undeserving.





	I’d Go the Whole Wide World

**Author's Note:**

> A dear friend just reached a milestone, and no this isn’t your present, but thinking of you has had me in a Blupjeans state of mind. I hope your days are full of fire, tenderness and whatever your heart needs to be happy and full.

There are times Barry feels guilty.

 

Lup’s hand on his stomach and her soft breath at his shoulder. Her body wrapped around his side, protective even in her sleep.

 

Guilty because he’s never felt safer than in her arms. Never felt warmer than next to her fire. A survivor’s guilt all the worse because he knows what it’s like to die.

 

He wonders where Taako is right now. If he’s home. If he, too, is sleeping. If someone as cold as Kravitz is capable of offering the same comfort.

 

They have a lot of cats.

 

A telling amount of cats.

 

Barry carefully moves a hand to her cheek, scythe-callused fingers breathlessly gentle as he caresses the warm skin. Her face is just a touch fuzzy without his glasses. Impossibly perfect.

 

He feels guilty sometimes, knowing every moment they spend alone is a moment she doesn’t spend with another. But maybe he’s earned it. Eternity can be so short and he just wants to spend it breathing her.

 

Maybe he can be selfish.

 

Every once in a while.

 

There was a time Barry felt a guest in their lives. Taako was always there to collect his sister at the end of a date. To take her back to the kitchen to make brunch when she spent the night. To set things back to normal with his other half once more. But that was before they read the two worst words in the common dialect.

 

Before they both had to learn how to live without her.

 

Ten years was a long time to get used to the cold.

 

So it feels indulgent. Excessive. Unfair. That he should have the fury of Lup between him and the world sleeping peacefully at his shoulder. That the rage forged in an entirely different crucible could so easily rest in his arms tonight.

 

So here lies Barry Bluejeans, Prometheus among men. Paid for with hypocrisy. Entirely undeserving.

 

Lup stirs and he forces himself to take a deep breath.

 

As bad as this is, it’s easier to think about stealing Taako’s world than all the worlds he failed through incompetence or negligence.

 

(“But you saved so many more.”)

 

Yeah, well. Tell that to his darkened ceiling at three A.M.

 

It’s easier to think of Taako, a Midas sitting in a golden tower of his own creation. Of how many walls and turrets it takes to replace the comforting reassurance of her companionship.

 

Of what thick skin Lup had to grow catching every blow Taako stepped back from.

 

But she’s soft now.

 

As much as she’s a terrifying woman made of flesh, blood, and iron will, she’s soft and new and this skin doesn’t carry near as many scars as the skin he kissed across a century.

 

He won’t let it.

 

Barry Bluejeans, human man, strength 14, 6’1” refuses to let the world hurt her anymore.

 

Except when he can’t. Except when he’s too slow. Too clumsy. Too weak and too stupid.

 

But he does what he can.

 

Which is all that he’s ever done.

 

Which is all that he’s ever been able to do.

 

He sighs and closes his eyes once more.


End file.
